


Dream a Little Dream

by tothineownelfbetrue



Category: Disenchantment (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Denial of Feelings, Developing Friendships, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Elfo wants to be friends, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, F/M, Feelings, Fighting, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Invasion of dreams, Jealousy, Luci hates appearing weak, Luci wants affection, M/M, Mentioned Elfo/Bean, Multi, Nightmares, Not talking about feelings, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Romantic Friendship, You can totally read implied Bean/Luci/Elfo OT3 too if you want, canon compliant for the end of part 1, canon divergent as of part 2, gratuitous chapter quotes, spoilers for the end of part 1, talking about not talking about feelings, unspoken feelings, wanting more out of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-12 01:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothineownelfbetrue/pseuds/tothineownelfbetrue
Summary: Demons have the ability to invade dreams.  It's just another way they can manipulate and torment the mortals they deal with day to day.  Luci never considers whether it's possible that going into Elfo's dreams might present any kind of  unique challenge to him...  But once he's started, he finds it's hard to want to stop.Or: That weird fic where Luci's dream invasion skills backfire on him. Because Feelings.





	Dream a Little Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was supposed to be a 4-5k one shot. Instead it ballooned into this monster of a thing, but since I refuse to break it into chapters, it's still a one shot. So I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Takes place after episode 10 "Dreamland Falls". Spoilers for the entire first season of Disenchantment.
> 
> Currently unbeta'd, but in the process of being looked over. The updated version will be added later.

 

 

-

 

_“Nothing happens... but first a dream”_

_-Carl Sandburg_

 

-

 

"I've never had a nightmare before..." Elfo's quivering was apparent as they walked, especially given the way he clasped his hands together in front of his chest.  Luci watched him out of the corner of one eye, vaguely amused despite the fact that they were still technically preoccupied with something else. For his part, Elfo seemed more worried about their surroundings than the pursuers who'd chased them all the way out here.  "Is this one?"

 

Luci snorted at that, shoulders rising in a shrug.  He'd barely met the elf only a half an hour or so ago, and just for enough time that he'd learned that his name was Elfo - which... what sort of name was that for an elf anyway? Obvious much? - and that he was not really very smart.  Their current interactions hadn't yielded too much more information than that, not surprising considering they'd primarily been related to running around, falling over and being carried around unceremoniously by Bean. That was fine with Luci though, he had no interest in getting to know the elf any better than he already did, because he was bland and uninteresting in every conceivable way.  "How should I know?" He answered, striding past the elf with his tail held high and swaying with confidence. "Demons don't even dream."

 

"You don't?" Elfo gasped out, flabbergasted at this new information.  He stared at Luci in a mix of horror and fascination. "Not even a little?"

 

"Eh.  Dreams are for mortals and losers." Luci said, chin tipping  up. "People with sad pathetic lives that they need an escape from.  Not demons. We're cool like that."

 

Elfo looked like he was going to say something else, though Luci wasn't sure if the elf's expression was one of admiration or dismay.  Either way, the sound of approaching hoofbeats was enough to preemptively shut him up. The three of them were forced to climb in an effort to hide themselves.  It was a ploy that only worked because their pursuers were so magnificently stupid.

 

There didn't seem any need for further conversation at that point, not even when they'd shaken the pursuit of the knights and settled in around their campfire.  Luci was starting to get the newest edition to their party sussed out and there was really nothing to be impressed by. The only thing Elfo had going for him was the obvious: his status as an elf.  Beyond that, he was dreadfully boring. He didn't even provide good fodder for torment, since he seemed to take Luci's barbs as though they were meant in good faith, and there was nothing as annoying to a demon as someone too stupid to be tormented properly.

 

As Luci curled himself beside Elfo to sleep, the two of them positioned at Bean's feet, Luci did take some small pleasure from the fact that Elfo's far too obvious crush on Bean was going to lead to nothing but heartache for the cheerful dumbass.  It would at least provide Luci with some small potential entertainment in the future.

 

Bean had already drifted off to sleep, not surprising given her whole day with escaping her marriage and stuff.  Luci thought that the elf was asleep too, he was so quiet and partly curled against the muddied hem of Bean's frilly dress.  So he was surprised to hear Elfo's voice, coming small and soft from beside him.

 

"Hey?  Uh? Luci?  Are you awake?"

 

Luci rolled his eyes at the sheer ignorance of that question.  Of course he was awake and if he hadn't been, being asked something so stupid would have woken him up anyway.  "Of course I am. Demons don't sleep." Well, they could sleep if they wanted to. Or at least they could mostly feign something that looked really similar to the way mortals slept, even if they didn't need it for any useful reason.  "We don't need to do things like you weak mortals."

 

Elfo was quiet for so long that Luci entertained the notion that he'd either learned to shut the fuck up or else had fallen asleep.  Then Elfo ruined it by speaking again. "And you don't dream at all? Really? That sounds sad..."

 

There was something in Luci that already railed against soft emotions, but this... this almost-pity... it was somehow even worse than the other sappy mortal feelings that could have been thrown his way.  The words evoked a sudden tenseness in him, claws dragging in the dirt as they clenched while he was trying to ignore Elfo's useless platitudes, blood pounding so hard in his own ears that he could barely even hear them anyway.  Eventually Elfo's attempts at conversation fell silent, reduced only to a few soft snores.

 

Yeah, Luci didn't need to sleep, but something about Elfo's gentle concern sat wrong with him.  He'd mostly been joking about the whole visiting them in their dreams things but now he felt a lot more serious about it.

 

He had something to prove.  He just wasn't sure what it was.  He laid there for a long while, eyes slitted open narrowly and his gaze on Elfo's soft sleeping face.

 

Pity him, huh?  Well he'd just see about that.

 

He didn't exactly sleep, but he didn't _not_ sleep either.  It was mostly a silent slipping of his own mind between states and then he was in a semi-familiar forest and his form was that of a giant skull.  He opened his bony jaws wide to let out a spew of raucous laughter, to bring down whatever hopeful, happy little dream Elfo might be engaged in.

 

Unfortunately for his attempts, the dream unfolding around him was the epitome of dull.  It was just Elfo standing around in a little forest clearing that faded off into a shapeless void around the edges like an incomplete picture.  The elf was putting bows onto packages that came off a mechanized assembly line that seemed to disappear into nowhere. It also came from nowhere.  Luci had been expecting something a bit more interesting. His hollow skull laughter echoed in the few sparse trees.

 

The elf looked up from his tedious task to where Luci was choosing to protect himself.  "Oh! A laughing skull! Hi, Laughing Skull! I'm Elfo!"

 

Luci's wicked laughter died off and he stared at the elf impatiently, his empty eye sockets trying to show his disgust at this complete lack of respect.  "What, seriously?" He grumbled, nonexistent eyes blazing. "You're not freaked out?" He'd been expecting some actual fear or at least discomfort at his presence, not this blithe greeting.

 

Elfo paused, thinking about it.  "No. Not really. It's nice to have some company."  He paused in what he was doing, the boxes still going past him on the conveyor belt and disappearing one by one into the nothingness.  He reached down to pick one up, holding it open so Luci could see the chocolates inside the heart shaped container. "Want one?"

 

"What?" Luci's skull form wavered as he stared at the elf, trying to figure out if Elfo was mocking him.  The look of innocent happiness at the prospect of sharing candy with an objectively terrifying monstrous skeletal entity never wavered and Luci wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or not.  Either way, he reached out with a very not skull-ish arm to take hold of the box itself. He dumped the chocolate contents inside all over the ground before cramming the actual cardboard into his mouth and chewing it loudly with a deliberate display of giant gnashing teeth.

 

Elfo let out a laugh at that, soft and delighted, and picked up the candies right off the ground to pop them into his mouth.  It didn't seem to bother him that they'd been discarded and were probably covered with gross stuff from being on the ground. He'd also completely missed out on the entire point of having a horrifying laughing skull in one's dreams.

 

So yeah, Luci could safely call this entire dream invasion thing a wash.  The elf was just too stupid for him to waste effort like this. Still, for some reason he elected to stay in the dream a while longer anyway.  It was marginally more interesting than the blank nothingness that existed when demons pretended to sleep.

 

-

 

Despite the fact that his first attempt at invading Elfo's dreams hadn't gone over that well, there was some stubborn part of Luci that wasn't quite willing to just give up yet.  It wasn't his powers going awry that was causing the problem either. He'd already confirmed that much by trying out his laughing skull routine on Bean and it had worked wonderfully.  It was just Elfo.

 

After a few subsequent attempts involving dreams that Luci found equally unbearable, he'd at least been able to definitively answer the question of whether Elfo was deliberately fucking with him.  He wasn't. Time and increased familiarity led to the inevitable conclusion that the elf really was just that frustratingly naive. Either that or he was an exceptionally brilliant actor with a truly biting amount of sarcastic wit... something Luci didn't buy for a second.

 

Elfo also didn't ever seem to remember the dreams when he woke up, which would have been more annoying if Luci had ever actually managed to freak him out at some point.  Whenever questioned, the elf always just gave a little shrug before continuing to follow Bean around like a lost puppy.

 

Still, regardless of his past failures - which, again were all Elfo's fault - Luci persisted.

 

-

 

He stopped appearing as a laughing skull after the fourth time.  It did nothing except earn him the cheery introduction "Hi Laughing Skull, I'm Elfo!" every damn time which was frustrating.

 

The first time he appeared as himself, Elfo hugged him.  It was right after that embarrassing incident where his two companions had 'rescued' him from big Jo.  Though the man had tumbled into the volcano himself, assisted by the novel use of his own severed arm as a bludgeon, Luci had been restless since they got back.  He'd spent most of the evening prowling around the castle, unable to settle down. He figured going into Elfo's subconscious would be boring enough to help him zone out for a bit.  It usually was.

 

Elfo recognized him as soon as he materialized and the next thing Luci knew, he was being dragged into a crushing hug.  "Luci!" Elfo squished him as though he had no intention of letting go. "You're okay!" The world around them was oddly chaotic and out of the corner of his eye, Luci could see the warm red glow that reminded him of the inside of the volcano.  His nose was mashed tightly against Elfo's chest though and so he couldn't make out much of his surroundings until the elf finally released him.

 

"Of course I'm okay," Luci muttered, dusting himself off with deliberate motions.  He didn't need Elfo, of all people, to be fussing over him and pitying him. Well... fussing was probably okay since Luci liked attention whenever he could get it, but pity... just no.  "I had everything under control!" What a lie! But it was a lie he was planning to stick with, at least until the heat death of the universe.

 

His vehement words and the way he was flailing to get further distance from the hug seemed to get through Elfo's thick skull because the elf finally backed off a step and looked down at him with a strange expression.  It settled into a slight, uncertain smile. "I'm glad you're back." And Luci could tell he meant it, the sap. Elfo always meant things like that. Besides, there was something about the dream realm... whenever Luci was engaging with someone's dreams, their feelings became a lot easier to read.  It usually made them more suggestible, for whatever that was worth.

 

Elfo's gaze slid away from Luci for a moment and the world melted away from whatever this red-lit place was.  Bean was there now, but it wasn't really Bean. There was something strangely vivid about this dream and Luci couldn't put his finger on it, not until Elfo joined in the dream again as though he and Luci hadn't just been conversing and hugging and shit.

 

"We can't let them destroy Luci!" Elfo was saying, and for a moment Luci almost interrupted to point out that he was right here, dumbasses, but then he realized this dream was actually tapping into Elfo's memories of the two of them coming to his rescue and he kept his mouth shut.  He had no idea how this was going to play out. Honestly, considering Elfo had dropped a goddamn rock right on his face, he'd kind of been assuming there'd been a certain amount of reluctance on the elf's part when it came to rescuing him. Yet he'd been wrong, clearly. Both Elfo and Bean seemed intent on recovering Luci and he watched with a sort of fascination as they bodily assaulted some highwaypeople who stood in their way.

 

They never looked in his direction and Luci knew that in the way of dreams, he didn't really exist to them unless he was actively trying to push his presence into their minds.  At the moment he didn't want to. There was a strange _something_ in him and he hesitated to give it a name since that might have come out weird and sentimental.  So he just watched Elfo actually punching some gender-neutral ruffian in the face to get to him and he found himself preening a little.

 

Who would have thought it?  Even after slipping out of the dream, the image still lingered with him.

 

-

 

Elfo was pathetic.  Of course Luci had already known this ages ago, it was nothing new, but at the same time, having to watch the elf pining over Bean like some kind of lovesick green puppy... well that was somehow a different sort of pathetic.  Ultra-pathetic, if you will. Even with Luci's goading, the most Elfo could manage in his attempt to get anywhere with Bean was a mostly passive-aggressive fit of temper that only succeeded in getting a bunch of random people killed.  Even that part wasn't on purpose, which would at least have been badass in a dickish sort of way. No. Elfo was disappointing all around.

 

He'd also spent hours where he'd kept running back to puke in the bucket.  At the time, Luci had still been a bit high so he'd watched with a dim sort of amusement.  When Elfo finally passed out on the floor beside Bean's bed, still not allowed to actually sleep on the bed itself, Luci idled over toward him.  He was still high, it was his only excuse. They were both asleep, but since Bean was up on the bed, Elfo was easier to reach.

 

The dream he entered was chaotic, which was a rather big change from his past experiences in the elf's subconscious landscape.  They were in the castle, in a dimly lit corridor and Elfo was walking. Where he was going Luci didn't know, but the stress and tension were palpable.  Luci had never had the full experience of possessing someone, since the thing with Bean had been both brief and unintentional, but h e knew that his whole invading dreams schtick was drawing on the same demonic skillset.  Yet it still always came as a surprise at how he could actually feel the thread of Elfo's pain and confusion. It was like sandpaper rubbing against his skin.

 

Simply retreating would have been the smart move to avoid some kind of emotional runoff from the distressed elf, but instead Luci stayed.  Somehow the corridors all looked the same as they walked, like they were moving through a repeating loop rather than an actual castle hall.  Luci kept pace with Elfo with each step, though Elfo never looked at him. With every lap through the bleak hallway the anxiety was more palpable, until Luci was immersed in it too, the feeling of -

 

_wrong. bad._

 

-all around them.  At last Elfo faltered and came to a stop, letting out a soft animal sound of despair.  It felt like needles prickling at Luci and he once again reminded himself that he could leave at any time.  That he should, in fact, leave right now. But still he didn't. He couldn't.

 

Elfo's suffering was palpable, if not understandable.  It wasn't until Bean's name came up in the whimpered cacophony of sounds that things finally clicked into place.  It was guilt, what he was feeling rolling off the elf in waves. Luci hadn't recognized it because he'd never felt it before.

 

The whole thing had long since lost its appeal and Luci finally stepped forward, focusing on making himself known.  "Hey buddy. Whatcha doing here?" He moved and spoke as though it wasn't just a dream and he wasn't some kind of mental intruder who might theoretically have been getting some intense satisfaction from manipulating Elfo through his dreams.

 

In response to Luci's words, Elfo jerked and gasped, looking at Luci wide-eyed as though he'd just materialized spontaneously from thin air.  In the dream mechanics maybe it did seem that way. The biggest downside to demons not being able to dream was that Luci had no point of reference of how anything might actually appear to the dreamer.  Elfo stared at him, wringing his hands as he murmured low and quivering, "I can't find Bean." he said, then added with a hint of confusion. "I couldn't find you either... and then you were right here."  It was kind of enlightening but not in any useful way.

 

"Why would Bean and I be missing?" Luci asked, deliberately leading.

 

Elfo's eyes were strangely shiny as he met Luci's gaze.  "I've been bad," he said after a long pause. The words had more behind them than it seemed, they were loaded with some kind of unconscious power that Luci did his best to ignore.

 

"Oh c'mon." Luci said to that, feeling a wave of shock going through him as the words left his own mouth.  "You're not _that_ bad.  I mean, I've been in hell.  I should know." He was remembering a drunken, stoned off his ass Elfo only a few days prior going on and on about how much he really wanted to be Bad Elfo.  The long rambling story about it had made Luci want to smack him. So this new confession causing Elfo some distress just left Luci that much more confused about the elf's concerns.

 

The elf finally stopped in his tracks, which was a good thing when they weren't getting anywhere anyway.  He didn't look directly at Luci though and the feeling that permeated the entire world around them - guilt - only intensified.  "But I was bad to Bean." He said at last, simply.

 

Luci had no idea what precisely had gone on between Bean and Elfo that evening, just that it had involved Elfo's jealousy over Bean's interest in that one viking dude.  Still, given the fact that Bean had practically been hugging Elfo on the balcony afterward, it couldn't have been that big of a deal to her. Even if it had been, it certainly wasn't his job to fix or reassure Elfo over things that didn't actually concern him at all.  The prudent move would have been to leave, to just fuck off from the dream altogether. It would have been the smart thing to do since getting involved in the emotional state of other people around him was just asking for trouble.

 

"It's okay." He said instead, awkwardly reaching out to pat Elfo on the arm.  "Just... do better, I guess?" He scowled at not knowing what the right thing was to say.  "This is how this comfort thing works, right? I'm not really good at this sentiment shit." He would never have dreamed of uttering those words if it wasn't in some kind of weird invasion of Elfo's subconscious mind that Elfo was going to forget about once he woke up.  But it was the truth. Demons were pretty awful at giving comfort. It literally went against their entire purpose.

 

Elfo didn't seem to notice how bad Luci was at the whole comforting thing, instead just throwing arms around him in abject gratitude.  "Thank you." What he said honestly made no fucking sense to Luci, especially when he added, "You're such a good friend!"

 

The words hung there for a moment as Luci's brain refused to even begin to process them.  He'd never been called a good friend. He wasn't objectively good in any sense of the word and he definitely wasn't anyone's friend.  After the stunned silence, Luci let his hold on the dream dissolve. He sat up on the bed, peering over the edge at the still sleeping elf.  Elfo's limbs were twitching a little, incomprehensible small noises on his lips, and Luci groaned and moved to the far side of Bean's pillow to get further away from him, despite the fact that proximity had nothing to do with his abilities.

 

Elfo wouldn't remember Luci's brief moment of sentimental insanity in the morning, which was the only good part of the whole ordeal.  In the morning, nothing was different about how Elfo reacted to him, his greetings were soft and chipper but he was smart enough - or familiar enough with Luci's habits - that he didn't try to hug him or anything.  Luci told himself that was for the best. Who wanted to be hugged by an elf anyway?

 

-

 

Bean's little screw up - which Luci had played only a tiny little part in - had landed them in trouble, but fortunately for Elfo, Zog had apparently forgotten his limb-hacking threat and instead chose to just send Bean to a nunnery instead.  Luci elected to tag along with her, though he could have stayed at the castle. It was his duty to be a bad influence on Bean and he really didn't want to spend too much time hanging around in Dreamland with Elfo as company. He especially didn't want to be too close to Elfo while he still had the memory of that hug stuck in his head.

 

Unfortunately the convent was even more boring than Dreamland castle was.  Luci did his best to liven everything up by getting Bean to harass and annoy the nuns. It wasn't a hard task.  Bean could probably have gotten them just as frustrated on her own, given her ignorance of how things worked for common folks.  It didn't give him a ton to do either way, except sit back and watch.

 

When Bean went to sleep, Luci idly considered going into her dreams to see if that might be more interesting, but all it took was grazing across her thoughts to realize he didn't want to get involved.  She was dreaming of the events of the day and those had been boring enough the first time around. Already involved in the magic, he cast his own consciousness out further, looking for something more engaging.  He didn't have to focus very hard before he brushed against a familiar mind. It gave him pause for a moment, as the sheer distance surprised him briefly. He'd never tried reaching out so far before. For some reason it had never even occurred to him that it would be possible to do so.

 

Luci twitched his tail slowly, tempted, and touched on the edges of Elfo's dream.  It felt warm somehow. Inviting. Luci felt himself beginning to sink easily into it.   Then he pulled his own consciousness back with a sharp snap of magic and laid there on the cool stone slab they'd given Bean to use as a bed, his claws clenching at nothing.  He stared at the wall in silence until morning.

 

-

 

Despite himself, Luci was happy to be back in Dreamland again, even if Bean had immediately gotten herself and her companions kicked out of the castle.  Spending time around town could lead to a lot of potential mischief... and nightmare fuel. The entire country was kind of a crapsack place. Luci didn't know how right he was about any of it until he got back to the castle after their run-in at the candy house.  Though the three of them had come away mostly unscathed, he was pretty sure there were going to be some interesting dreams about it.

 

So of course he tapped into Elfo's dreams as soon as the elf dozed off.  Elfo had nearly been cooked alive only a few hours ago. Outwardly he seemed no worse for the wear, but Luci remembered the heat of the oven rather vividly himself, when he'd crawled in to rescue their hapless companion.  Elfo'd been limp in his grasp when he pulled him out, smelling like sugar and fire. If Luci could remember it, he had no doubt that Elfo had to be a mess, at least on a subconscious level. Luci really wanted a glimpse of that mess.

 

He was surrounded by fire and despite the fact that he was completely immune to fire, being a demon, and that of course this dream wasn't real anyway and couldn't have hurt him, he couldn't help a slight jolt of surprise.  He hadn't expected Elfo to be literally dreaming of being roasted alive. Speak of the elf. He was there in the midst of the fire, sitting in his deep-walled pan, the one that Luci vaguely remembered from his venture into the oven.  Elfo was surrounded by oozing and bubbling candy. By waking world logic, the red hot sugar should have already severely burned Elfo but he seemed fine.

 

Elfo had his knees pulled up to his chest, arms around them and despite the fact that he wasn't bound, he was making no effort to escape the oven.  He looked up at Luci blankly as the demon came in close. For a few seconds, there was no recognition in the elf's yellow eyes, just the reflection of the firelight around them.  Luci stopped short of touching him, feeling a moment of uncertainty. He cleared his throat.

 

"Hey."  Lame. What was he even doing?  "I'm here to rescue you." His words were less than heroic in tone, coming out almost like a question.  Why the hell was he asking Elfo if he could rescue him?

 

There was no immediate reaction and for some reason that made Luci more tense.  Elfo was normally so good at whining and kicking up a fuss that this silence was rattling.  He just stared at Luci and then gave a very slow blink. There was a smell on the air, like honey and burning meat, it stung at Luci's nostrils.  Then finally, Elfo spoke, his voice coming out slow and thick. "Luci?"

 

Something was heavy in Luci's chest.  This entire dream was disturbing on a level he didn't want to think too much into.  Part of him wanted to chalk it up to the fact that he knew that under that cutesy do-gooder exterior, Elfo was pretty fucked up.  Just fucked up in general, not even specifically over the getting cooked alive thing. It was something that Luci had been trying to get his claws into for a while, to exploit so he could get under the elf's skin.  Elfo had somehow resisted these efforts, deflected them without ever seeming to really be trying to and it drove Luci mad at every turn.

 

He could have leaned into it now.  The vulnerability was rolling off of Elfo in waves and it would have been easy - so easy - to just tear into him.  Luci could take him apart if he wanted. It would be so simple...

 

"C'mon." Luci barked gruffly, hopping forward and feeling the dream-flames licking against the soles of his feet.  He planted his shoulder in Elfo's middle and hoisted him. Even in the real world, picking up Elfo had been simple, in the dream he weighed virtually nothing.  Luci held the elf, braced across his body, the flames parting as he walked in a way that real flames would never have done. For an oven that would have been barely a couple of feet across in real life, it took ages to traverse.  He also never actually stepped out of the mouth of the oven at any point, the world just stopped being on fire around him all of a sudden and he was hit with a blast of cool air.

 

He took a couple more steps, just to be sure, then clumsily dropped Elfo to the ground.  "So, I think I've had enough of your nightmares for a while." He said, trying to sound off-handed and conversational.  He was going to use some more sarcasm - Elfo deserved that much at least, for forcing Luci to be altruistic for a few seconds - but then he felt Elfo's arms wrap around him and pull him into a hug.

 

The entire world was the sweet stink of burned caramel and another smell that he could only classify as 'elf'.  Luci's body was stiff for a few seconds as he battled with the urge to shove the elf off of him. Then he instead felt himself settling into it.  As gross as hugging was, this was kinda his due right? He'd saved Elfo, he got attention. Right.

 

Luci turned his head as he allowed the hug to continue, pressing his nose up between the junction of Elfo's neck and shoulder, drawing a long breath.  Holding it. Letting it out. "Don't expect me to get you out of trouble again, you moron." He muttered low, then his arms came up around Elfo to hug him back.  It was just an automatic thing. Not on purpose.

 

Stupid elf.  Stupid dreams.

 

-

It was one of those idle sorts of evenings for Luci.  It was unusual that they got through an entire day without getting wasted, and while Bean had indulged more than enough for all three of them, both Luci and Elfo had somehow managed to come through the day while still relatively sober.  It was something Luci regretted as soon as Bean fell asleep, expecting that Elfo was going to try and socialize with him.

 

What he hadn't been expecting was that the elf instead decided to excuse himself and retreat back to his cramped little cage instead of sitting around in the room while Bean was sleeping.  He hadn't even asked Luci if he'd wanted to hang out. Of course he hadn't, but that didn't mean he didn't want to be asked, damn it. That implied that Elfo had something more interesting in his life than a demon and that just didn't sit well with Luci.

 

After brooding for a suitable amount of time, muttering low things about 'stupid elf' and 'how dare he have his own boring stuff to do', Luci decided to get up and follow after him.  The corridors were dark because it was late and the lighting in this cruddy kingdom was pretty sucky to begin with, but that part didn't bother a demon with perfect night vision. He made his way up the stairs to the weird little room where Sorcerio kept Elfo's cage.  By the time Luci got all the way up there, he was already regretting even bothering, especially as he pushed the door open and stepped inside, only to find that Elfo was half curled into a ball on the bottom of his cage, asleep. It made his entire trip a waste of time.

 

For a few seconds, he pondered on waking Elfo up, perhaps by whapping him with his tail or going enough out of his way to fetch some water that he could readily use to dump on his sleeping companion.  But water was too far away and too much work, and whapping him with his tail seemed anti-climactic. Luci scowled, pondering for a few seconds, his eyes narrowed. Then he gave a shrug of his shoulders.

 

Why not?

 

As he entered Elfo's dream, he was disappointed at the mundane setting.  They seemed to be in some kind of village, probably the Elfwood place Elfo had mentioned several times in the past while Luci had been pointedly ignoring him.  It was probably just some comfort thing, since Luci knew that Elfo liked to think about his stupid little elm tree when he was stressed. He had no idea why Elfo would be stressed, unless he was still on about his unrequited crush on Bean, but maybe it would make for some good drama.  

 

The sounds he heard almost immediately upon entering the dream realm were somewhere promising.  There were some soft whimpers that Luci took for fear or anxiety. He was expecting them to turn into whining or crying, as Elfo was likely to do even in the real world, and even more likely in dreams where he tended to be all emotional for whatever reason.  Luci moved toward the source of the sound, with his usual silent step, not even really trying to not be noticed.

 

What he saw as he rounded a massive tree trunk was not at all what he'd expected.  His mind refused to even process for a second or two. It wasn't _just_ shock he was feeling.  Throughout their encounters, Luci had always put things together in his mind to form an image of Elfo that hadn't mentally prepared him for... well... this.

 

He had no idea who the woman was.  She could have been based on someone real, or just a fantasy lady, but she was definitely naked and doing some rather raunchy things with an equally naked Elfo.  Luci stared, wondering why it hadn't ever occurred to him that underneath that pathetic goody-two shoes exterior, Elfo was as much of a needy bastard as every other mortal Luci had ever met.  Seeing that firsthand was eye-opening at the least. Somehow Elfo and Sex were two entirely separate things in his mind and the thought of both together was refusing to settle with him. Given that he was fully aware of the presence of Bean's sexual exploits - and sometimes the details - as well as the sex lives of several others in the castle, including - unfortunately - King Zog, it seemed strange that this was the scene that made his skin crawl.

 

He turned away, once it had all sunk in, his ears going back.  It didn't drown out the sounds. He closed his eyes and let the dream world fade away around him, without even trying to interrupt the scene he'd been confronted with.  He was oddly cold as the dream went away, his fur standing on end as he slipped out of the room to pace the empty corridors of the castle until sunrise.

 

-

 

It took a couple of weeks after that before Luci dared to try his whole dream invasion thing again.  He'd considered it a few times before then, but had always thought better of it at the last second. He didn't know what he might see.  Well... the trouble was that he did know and he didn't want to see it, no matter how unlikely.

 

During all this, he spent an equal amount of time being testy at Elfo for putting him through this kind of mental trauma in the first place.  Every opportunity he could get, he needled the elf. It went beyond the usual idle mockery of Elfo's dreams and goals and into personal attack territory and might have gone even further if Bean hadn't stepped forward to scold him about being nicer to Elfo.  The elf in question didn't help either. He'd been smart enough to catch on that Luci was annoyed at him but unable to put together why, making him even more annoying somehow as he tried to figure out what was wrong, only stopping after Luci snapped at him to back off.  Luci wanted to wallow in his weird burgeoning anger and even a productive dream visit - one without naked bimbos - would have gotten under his skin. It wasn't until after their return from Dankmire that he finally gave in to the urge.

 

Elfo had been so angry in the swamp.  At him, even. It had been somehow great, even when it had been annoying and gotten Luci repeatedly slapped with his own tail.  He'd never thought the sniveling elf capable of that kind of rage. It had been an eye-opener.

 

The dreamscape he entered was a forest, though not a soggy, humid one like the swamp they'd spent the past day traversing.  Luci came up on Elfo there, and was immediately surprised as the elf rounded on him without hesitation.

 

A lot of the time, Elfo's dreams had little to do with the events of the day, so this very obvious exception caught him off guard, especially as Elfo’'s fist hit him square in the snout.  He let out a low swear, stumbling backward. "What the fuck?!"

 

"You're such a jerk!" Elfo yelped out, trembling with his agitation, his voice cracking on the words.  "Why are you so mean?!" Luci thought he was going to lash out again, but instead Elfo backed up and paced a quiet circle before coming at him again.  "You're a jerk to me all the time!" He had to admit it was true, but he'd always thought Elfo was mostly oblivious to his asshole behaviour. Perhaps he was just registering it on a subconscious level and was unwilling to try confronting Luci about it.

 

But this was a dream... the ultimate freedom, even for repressed dorks like Elfo.  No consequences.

 

Elfo's hand hit him again, this time in a slap.  His frustration was palpable and despite the slight pain, Luci sneered in return, goading Elfo for some reason he couldn't understand himself.  "Well yeah. You just make it so easy, though." He scoffed, sharp and biting. "You're pathetic. You don't take any initiative. You just mope around and moon over Bean like a lovestruck idio-"  His words were cut off as Elfo reached out and snatched hold of him bodily. Luci screwed his eyes shut, prepared for a much harder punch, given Elfo's worked up state.

 

His eyes opened again in shock as instead of being struck with the elf's fist, he instead felt the warm firm mash of lips pressed hastily and clumsily to his own.  With his eyes closed, Luci could almost have convinced himself he'd imagined it, it was such a strange situation. But his eyes were open here and there was no denying the truth.

 

Elfo had just kissed him.

 

Was still kissing him, actually.  He wasn't very good at it, probably because Luci's big muzzle-like nose and his shorter stature made the angle really awkward, but the enthusiasm was there.  More to the point, Luci could feel it all around them, the surprisingly strong ache of emotion closing in on him like a physical thing. Luci couldn't even begin to process what it all meant.

 

Eventually Elfo pulled back for air that he didn't really need because it was all a dream, and Luci unconsciously followed his motion for some reason, not breaking away from the kiss until the elf had pulled far enough back that they weren't touching anymore.  Then the realization of what was happening struck him and he pulled the rest of the way back with an alarmed growl. "What the fuck?!"

 

There were so many more things he wanted to say, too many weird feelings going through him to sort through.  Luci didn't even know where to start. "What was that for?!" His voice came out higher and more accusing than he was used to and he could see the mingled terror and surprise on Elfo's face as he recoiled under the onslaught of Luci's questions.  Elfo wasn't the only one pulling back, Luci was shuffling backward, his tail lashing behind him in swift, terse strokes. There were too many questions, he had to clench his claws into his own palms before he could speak. "How long have you..." Luci couldn't bring himself to finish the question, no matter how much he needed to know the answer.

 

Elfo let out a small croak, a helpless sound, and then the dream dissolved around them.

 

Luci jolted upright, every hair standing on end as he peered across the bed.  He was just barely in time to see the flushing, flustered elf on his way out the door.

 

So.  He wasn't the only one who'd been caught off guard.  This was the first dream he'd been in that he knew for sure Elfo remembered upon waking up.  He wasn't sure if he should have been offended that Elfo's first big nightmare had been about kissing him.  He also wasn't sure about much else either, like exactly what was going on in Elfo's head in regards to their relationship.  He'd known the elf considered them friends, despite all of his own attempts to discourage this line of thought. But was there more?

 

There was also the fact that he wasn't even sure what he was feeling about this himself.  That part he didn't dwell on. He shoved it down, because he really fucking didn't want to think about Elfo kissing him and wonder about what he'd been feeling in that moment, other than dumb surprise.

 

He could have gone after Elfo.  It wasn't like the elf was ever hard for him to follow, but he honestly had no idea what he'd say or do if he did catch up.  If Elfo hadn't abruptly woken up, Luci thought that maybe he would have gone over and punched him hard. But given that Elfo was now awake, there wasn't any way for him to do so without revealing that he'd been moonlighting in Elfo's dreams for the past month.  Of course, up until a few minutes ago, Luci hadn't cared if Elfo knew about what he was doing or not.

 

With no easy way to decide what the fuck he should do, Luci took the path of least resistance.  He laid there on Bean's pillow, listening to her soft snores and wondering why he could manage to mess with Elfo on a subconscious level but still had no clue how the elf's mind worked.

 

What was with the kiss?

 

Did Elfo have some kind of attraction to him?  Was it one of those stupid elf customs that Elfo sometimes blabbed on and on about while Luci didn't actually listen?  Also Elfo had a massive thing for Bean, that was obvious, so why would he kiss Luci?

 

Granted, dreams didn't always reflect reality.  Luci had to remind himself of the fact. Dreams could stray into some really weird territory and maybe this was it.  Maybe it was just some absurd coincidence, like when people dreamed of going to work with no pants on. Maybe it was just that.  Yeah.

 

-

 

Elfo's behaviour toward Luci the next day was odd but gave no implication that he was somehow trying to get into Luci's pants.  Well... metaphorical pants, anyway, since Luci didn't wear clothing. It didn't seem to be the case though. In fact, Elfo was sticking close to Bean, like a burr attached to her side.  Perhaps he seemed a bit more flustered when talking to Luci, but he'd never been a great communicator anyway.

 

Luci tried to take his cue from Elfo and forget any of this weirdness had ever happened. It was just a dream, that was all.

 

Besides, after their near-death experience in the plague pit, Luci had a lot more fodder for tormenting Elfo about his crush on Bean.  That was a much safer subject of conversation anyway, at least for Luci. So of course he gave Elfo all the rope he needed to hang himself and then watched him squirm.  It was delicious really, and just what Luci had needed to distract him from all this awkwardness. It worked even better than anticipated when Bean got it into her head to bring Elfo's fake girlfriend back to the castle.

 

Luci didn't buy the ruse for a second, checking in on Elfo remotely a couple of times while he was locked up in the cheese cave with the giantess.  Since Elfo wasn't asleep - presumably because he was either being murdered by an angry giant or because he and the giant were somehow doing even more unspeakable things that Luci didn't want to wrap his head around - he had no luck in actually making contact with the elf's dreams.

 

Even knowing that it was all a crock of bullshit, the reveal of the truth later, in the most humiliating way possible, should have been vindicating.  Luci had fodder for a lot more torment and Elfo was probably going to be writhing in shame for a while about his whole fake girlfriend deal.

 

It was what he was looking forward to, in the dream.  It was likely to be a pretty messed up one too, considering the state that both of Luci's mortal companions had been in upon their return to the castle. They'd both been stoned off their asses and stumbling around.  Luci got over the effect of drugs so much faster that he actually had to be the one to guide them back to Bean's room, and he wasn't some kind of stoner babysitter, damn it.

 

Despite any hallucinatory madness in the waking realm, the dreamscape Luci entered was almost serene.  It was the castle balcony and there was the beginning of light starting to touch on the horizon. Bean was there, which was sometimes the case in Elfo's dreams, especially after any kind of wild escapades.  Here she was just sitting, with Elfo sitting beside her.

 

It had amazed Luci, after the dream with Elfo and the dark-haired woman, that Bean never seemed to show up in any kind of sexual manner in these dreams.  Bean was always just Bean. She wasn't even dressed up fancily in the way she had been at the party. Elfo was clearly a sexual being, as much as that really hurt Luci's brain to think about, and he had the worst thing for Bean, so this juxtaposition of conflicting elements was confusing as hell.

 

There wasn't even a kiss, in the dream.  He'd seen their bizarre drugged up kiss on the street, but there was none of that here. No tension.  There was just Bean holding out her hand and Elfo taking it with a bright smile. The sunrise lit everything in a way that was distinctly romantic despite the complete lack of any action.

 

Luci felt like he should have laughed or mocked, but he just stood there awash in a surge of feelings that he couldn't identify as Elfo's or his own.  He made a small noise.

 

At the sound, Elfo turned his head, looking at Luci.   _This is a dream_ , Luci reminded himself.  Just a stupid product of subconscious thought.  It had no bearing on Reality. So when Elfo held out his other hand in invitation, Luci knew it didn't mean a damn thing.  It was nothing real. He looked at the offered hand and felt his fingers flexing with the urge to take it, to maybe even enjoy this stupid sappy sunrise with the two of them.

 

But he didn't.  Instead he took a step back, face turned away from the brightening light outside.  "You actually love her, you idiot." He rasped out, wondering why he was surprised.

 

It wasn't just a stupid crush was it?  It was so much worse. As if everything about this wasn't hard enough already.  He didn't need some stupid mortals getting under his skin. And it was just his luck that it was these two, of all the hopeless dumbasses in the world.  He had no idea how Bean felt about Elfo. Certainly the elf didn't exactly run to her usual tastes, but there was still something weirdly compelling about his naivete.  Luci had noticed it and it was hard to imagine that Bean, ignorant though she might be, was entirely unaware of it.

 

And even if Bean _didn't_ want Elfo, it didn't really matter because the idiot was besotted with her.   _More than a crush, goddamn it it, Elfo_.  Even if Elfo could have managed to lie convincingly in the waking world - he couldn't - there was no lying this deep in the subconscious state.  He could feel it around him whenever he touched the dreamer's mind. The truth.

 

He wasn't disappointed.  It was all kinda laughable and gross, like most sentimental mortal things.  Dream-Elfo was confused, staring at him uncomprehending, hand still outstretched.  Luci could still have taken it. Instead he let the dream dissolve around him, leaving him sitting on the windowsill in Bean's room, reaching blindly for his weed.  Sure, he couldn't sleep - damn demon biology - but he could get stoned off his ass and that was almost as good. Almost.

 

-

 

Then the idiot elf got himself kidnapped.  As if he wasn't inconvenient enough by being so damn confusing.  Luci should have been relieved to have him gone, considering the amount of trouble he was making for Luci's mission, and his state of mind.  Instead the whole thing was infuriating.

 

So they were on a mission to rescue their lost elf or die trying, or more accurately, kill a bunch of Pendergast's guys trying.  Bean's distress was palpable as they rode and she kept murmuring to herself, useless little reassurances. Luci might have been offended at how worried she was over their missing companion if he hadn't remembered her in Elfo's dream, just as determined to get him back from Big Jo.  At one point she turned her head to look at him, brows furrowed. "You don't think they'll kill him, do you?" She was probably remembering Sorcerio's experimentation and a few of the times they'd come in to find their elf so drained of blood he was barely moving or breathing. She'd been worried then.  Not Luci though. Not even a little.

 

"Nah.  He's pretty tough." Luci said, trying to sound casual.  "I mean nothing's killed him yet, right?"

 

"Yeah." Bean frowned a little.  "Yeah, I guess so." She seemed a bit mollified by his words, but the anxiety was still there.  Luci could feel the edge of it across his bond with her. "I just wish I knew for sure that he's okay."

 

The assholes who'd taken Elfo needed him for his blood.  Luci assumed that meant they'd keep him alive. But Bean's worry had gotten to him, crammed across their connection with such force behind it that it was hard to tell from his own feelings.  There was only one thing he could think of to try, but with the distance and no easy way to tell where Elfo was in relation to them, it was a literal shot in the dark. Luci reached out anyway, trying to touch the elf's mind, knowing it probably wouldn't happen.  Even if he could somehow reach out far enough to find Elfo, he might not even be asleep-

 

-

 

"Elfo?" He called out, feeling the void around him, a vague wavery nothingness.

 

"Luci?"  Came the soft voice in return.  Small. Uncertain. "Is that really you?"

 

Luci let out a laugh, feeling some of the tension seep out of him with the sound.  "Yeah. Yeah, it is buddy." He could see Elfo now and the elf was sitting, looking up at his approach with wide, bright eyes.  "We're coming to get you. You just gotta hang in there a bit longer." And Luci couldn't fathom why his own voice had that weird note to it, why he was the one reaching out with a hand when he'd declined to take Elfo's not that long ago.

 

Elfo didn't hesitate to take it.

 

Then Luci was hugging him, a multitude of warring impulses clamoring for his attention.  He was a fucking mess and he didn't even know why. And really, he didn't _do_ hugs, that wasn't a demon thing, but Elfo was soft and squishy in a weirdly nice way and he smelled vaguely sweet. And he tasted like - like...

 

Luci was shaking as he jerked his head back, wondering what the hell he'd just done and already weirdly missing the feeling of the elf's lips against his own.  He couldn't even pin the blame on Elfo this time. He'd started it. What a huge, massive, colossal fuckup this all was. Elfo was still looking at him, worried. Searching.  Then his hand reached out, small green fingers coiled into the short fluff at the back of Luci's head and tugging him forward gently.

 

The second kiss lasted longer than the first.  It felt like they were there forever, just pressed in close, exploring with some hesitation.  Luci couldn't tell if Elfo tasted more like caramel or sunshine, and honestly he didn't give a shit.

 

When they finally pulled away, they still lingered close for a moment while Luci struggled to process what had just happened... twice.  The demon would have let it happen again, except for the one thing that really made no sense. "Bean." He said, unable to formulate the rest of a question.

 

For all his denseness, Elfo caught on to what Luci was trying to say, looking at Luci with a plaintive stare.  "I love Bean." He said, and Luci, again, could feel the truth in his words. As Luci moved, perhaps to take a step back from the uncomfortable reminder of what he'd already known, Elfo's voice rang out again.  "Luci." He was silent until Luci met his gaze, struggling with something, then added softly. "I like you too."

 

Luci wanted to scoff. To laugh.  He felt all of his walls going up, all the reminders about why dealing with mortals was such a bad idea, nothing but a pain in his ass.  He shoved down the memory of the two of them worried over him, coming to his rescue. Ultimately it didn't mean anything. He wasn't like them.  He felt the bitterness in his small frame, so vast that it felt he might burst from it. Yeah. It was just how he ranked wasn't it? Bean got the love and he got - "I don't need your pity!"

 

"You don't have it!" Luci blinked in astonishment at the note Elfo hit, it was so reminiscent of their fight in the swamps of Dankmire.  That look on Elfo's face was similar too, barely contained frustration and anger. "I like you, yeah. That's all you've ever let me do! You don't even want me to do that much!"

 

It was true.  Luci had been offered friendship from the elf, softness, also caring, and he'd responded with rebuffs, mocking and even physical violence.  He couldn't _be close_ to someone like Elfo, not even as so-called friends.  Certainly not as...

 

"You've never let me know you." Elfo was saying, with no clue about the gears turning in Luci's mind.  His voice ended on a breathy whine. "I want to know you."

 

Something broke then, something Luci really needed to hold together.  It just shattered. There wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. "You will, okay." Luci said, not even sure what the hell he was saying.  For the moment, he didn't care. "You will." He pushed his mouth against Elfo's urgently. The kiss seared across his senses and it didn't even matter how fucked up this was or what his mission was... or even that his actual body was still bouncing along on the back of Bean's horse somewhere.

 

He needed this.  His claws tore at Elfo's shirt frantically and then it was gone.  His own urgency was pounding at him and he wasn't sure why he was in such a rush.  Except... maybe it was because this was still a dream and Elfo's conscious state had never indicated anything more than a fleeting interest in Luci in a way other than merely friendly.  But this tension was real enough, he reasoned, it was just refusing to bleed to the outside world. Here he could easily read Elfo's interest and indulge his own. There was still the safe barrier of the dream to hold everything in from the world.

 

And fuck, he could barely tolerate just being _safe_ anymore.

 

Luci had no idea how this was supposed to go, too preoccupied at simply getting the sensation of them closer, as close as they could be.  When they were pressed belly to belly he hesitated, not knowing what to do with someone who wasn't even a woman. He was also bizarrely afraid that Elfo was going to get freaked out at any second about what he was doing and push him away.  "I need you to remember this when you wake up..." he said, voice flat with the effort he made to keep it from shaking. The words came out like some kind of apology. And the worst thing is, no matter how he wanted it, to be remembered like this, he knew it wasn't even remotely likely.

 

Elfo didn't do him the disservice of pointing this out, at least.  One small green hand slid down between them, oddly confident, and Luci was briefly, jealously, reminded of the dream with the dark haired woman.  Then those fingers coiled around him just where he wanted them and he was too distracted to ponder on it more. It barely lasted. If this had been the real world, Luci would have been humiliated at how little there was to it.  Yet still, he felt somehow vindicated.

 

"Have you ever?" He asked, not saying the rest of the words.  Elfo could hardly lie to him here and it was something he'd been aching to know since the dream with the mystery woman.

 

The elf flushed to the tips of his pointy ears and that was answer enough, even before the words.  "Not like this." It answered several questions and brought up several more, but despite the inclination to be jealous over a woman he'd never met before, Luci could still find some satisfaction in it.

 

"Good."  Luci was fully aware that it was still just a dream to Elfo, even if this was something the elf really wanted.  Now he knew that the elf had at least thought of it, and of him. At this point, he knew Elfo better than Elfo probably knew himself.  Getting Elfo to figure out all this subconscious need in the waking world... well that might be a challenge. But Luci was up for a challenge.

 

And he was pretty sure he'd probably made the sleeping elf actually turned on in the real world and the thought was deeply amusing.  He pressed his nose up against Elfo's neck and breathed out a hot breath. "We'll find you soon." He said, confident in the knowledge.  It wasn't like Bean was going to give up. She was amazingly stubborn about some things. He knew there was a reason they clicked so well.

 

And when they did find Elfo... he'd let the elf try again.  See what would happen without the constant rebuffs. Dreams usually had a bit of reality in them, something to ground them.  He could only hope this one did too.

 

-

 

He'd had some kind of plan in the wake of his realization about Elfo.  Really he had. But it had been hard to do much about it given the absolute shitshow that was the next few days.  It felt like they were careening from one thing to the next. Their capture, though humiliating, also gave them the opportunity to see Elfo again.  Luci would have been happier if the elf hadn't been so delighted to get Bean's attention... and for her part, Bean seemed just as happy to see Elfo.  The entire scene was kind of disgusting, really. Stupid sappy mortals.

 

And they didn't even bother getting him out of his bottle and hugging him too.  Not that he wanted hugs. He didn't. But to be left just hanging there like a slowly swinging pendulum was frustrating.  Despite any urges he might have had to kiss Elfo or express any kind of soft emotions, he did get a bit of vicarious enjoyment from watching Elfo be forced to crawl around the desert on hands and knees.  Served him right for ignoring Luci.

 

Their exciting escape from Big Jo got him on a bit of a high.  It had been great to see that guy get his comeuppance... again.  And Luci wasn't entirely convinced it would stick this time, but hopefully being buried under an entire desert would slow the asshole down.

 

He watched Bean and Elfo sleep.  They'd passed out almost immediately upon climbing up onto the griffin's back and they were tucked safely between the creature's beating wings, curled side by side.  The sight of them made him ache in a way that had nothing to do with how he'd been manhandled and tossed around for the past few days. It was a feeling too big for a body as small as his, and too soft to sit well with his status as a creature of evil.

 

When they weren't awake, weren't expecting anything from him, he could spare a moment to indulge himself in it.  He watched the curl of pale hair against Bean's cheek as she turned her face into the fur along the griffin's back.  She wasn't an elegant sleeper and there was a line of drool running along the curve of her lip to dampen the fur she was lying on.  Elfo was beside her, curled slightly, the soft hum of his breath somehow soothing. Idiots, the both of them. Being around them reminded him both how fragile and how strong mortals could be.

 

His mind brushed across their dreams, though he didn't envelop himself with them.  It was still tempting. From the brief touch of their minds, he'd sensed that things were peaceful, which was especially unusual for Bean.  He hesitated, wanting to join in for a moment. He'd never considered his inability to dream as anything other than useful before.

 

Instead he turned his head away, climbing higher onto the griffin's head and casting his gaze around.  He'd let his dumbasses sleep a bit longer. They needed it.

 

-

 

Of course things hadn't gone the way they'd expected on their return, but even Luci hadn't predicted that twist.  He could believe Elfo's protest that he was an elf, because never in the time he'd been barging his way into Elfo's dreams had there been any hint that Elfo knew anything about his heritage other than the obvious.  Though in hindsight, Luci really had been amused back when they'd met that anyone would be enough of an asshole to name their kid 'Elfo'.

 

Not that Zog was smart enough to understand the concept of how someone omitting a fact they didn't know wasn't the same as lying.  Even if he had been, he was spiteful enough that he probably would have thrown the elf out anyway. For his part, Luci managed to keep himself together a lot better than Bean was.  She was losing it with anger and defensiveness as the elf was dragged away and one of them had to be the level head here. It irked him though since he was technically the one who was supposed to be getting Bean into trouble and here he was having to stop her from pulling a sword and attacking the guards so she could go running off after their companion.

 

They'd find him.  He had no doubt of that.  His ability to track by scent was fairly strong and there was nothing else he'd ever encountered that had smelled anything like Elfo.  

 

Finding Elfo proved to be more of a pain in the butt than looking for him had been.  Luci's slight epiphany about his feelings was the reason he hadn't beaten the shit out of the elf in retaliation for the whole pouncing and punching him thing.  Elfo had been warm on top of him, even his fists had been warm and surprisingly strong in his state of panic. Luci looped his tail into the back of Elfo's shirt to pick him up, glowering the entire time and trying not to remind himself that this was the idiot he'd found it hard not to kiss.

 

He'd planned to do better when it came to interacting with them.  With Bean, a bit, as well as Elfo. He even tried to listen while Elfo was talking about his pathetic life as an apparent half-breed.  He would have preferred the opportunity to talk about himself, especially since Elfo had shown interest in him in the past and he'd kinda told dream-Elfo that he'd be more open, but actual awake Elfo made this kind of emotional honesty hard.

 

Whatever his plan was, however good his intentions, it was all shot to hell.  First figuratively, when Pendergast and the knights showed up and the stupid elves decided that now was a good opportunity to grow a spine and fight back.  And then his plans were literally shot to hell.

 

The sound of the arrow hitting Elfo in the back would stay with Luci for a long time.  The sound of it reverberated in his ears, covering the sound of his own heartbeat. Luci had been frozen in place for too long, caught by the rasp of air in Elfo's chest and the echo of his own words sounded confused and hurt as they hit the air.  "Who did that?" He lurched to move beside Bean, but it was too late and he already knew it. The words wouldn't go away, nor would the fact that Elfo had died in Bean's arms before Luci had even gotten close enough to touch his hand, much less say anything eloquent about feelings.

 

Fucking feelings.  How stupid had he been to catch feelings in the first place?  Luci tried to ignore that last dream he'd shared in. It had been Elfo's dream.  It didn't mean anything. Not really.

 

And there weren't going to be any more dreams.  Not now.

 

He tried to remind himself of that, on the long and silent walk back, hoping it would put things back into perspective.  Nothing had been real. The entire thing, all of it, had been Elfo's stupid subconscious fantasies. Luci tried to tell himself that it was mostly just pathetic - and a tiny bit flattering, maybe - that Elfo had responded to him in the dreams so much.

 

but it was nothing to get worked up over. Nothing.  He drove the memory of dream kisses from his mind and tried to get on with his life and his mission.  It'd be fine.

 

Forgetting might even have eventually worked if Bean's mom hadn't turned out to be a murderous bitch who was trying to get rid of all of them.

 

_C'est la vie._

 

-

 

Luci had no idea how long he'd been trapped in the bottle.  Big Jo had to be keeping him for a reason... probably trying to use him to get to Bean somehow, since otherwise he was pretty sure he'd already have been tossed cheerfully into the nearest volcano.  Whatever the reason, it was all tremendously dull. There was nowhere to go and no one to mess with. There weren't even any other demons to gripe to.

 

There was just him and the bottle.

 

Alone.

 

-

 

He was in a dream, he could tell.  It just had that feeling to it, like the world wasn't quite solid around him.  Somehow he'd been so bored and zoning out that he'd just involuntarily reached out to find something - anything - more interesting than his captivity.

 

Seemed like he'd found it.

 

There was something familiar about all of this. The forest, the weird not-quite-sunlight lighting.  He heard the first few achingly familiar notes of a pipe and for a moment his nonexistent heart stopped.  Then he scrambled toward the sound, needing to find the source.

 

He was there. Elfo. It was him.

 

He looked up in confusion as Luci drew near, pipe set aside as the sounds faded on the air.  "Luci?" Elfo didn't get out any other words before Luci had them pressed together, kissing Elfo like he'd die if he couldn't get any closer.  After a moment of hesitation, Elfo kissed him back.

 

It wasn't all they did.  Not by a long shot. Luci took everything he could, everything he could get.  It was a chance he hadn't expected to have again and he was determined to enjoy it, and the dream version of his elf wasn't protesting.  Dreams were one of those things that could last a few seconds or a whole lifetime. It was hard to know how much time was going by in the dream world.  Days, maybe weeks. Luci was ready to milk it for every second.

 

Based on his interactions with Elfo in the dreams, he had a more complete mental image of the elf than he had back when they'd first met.  He remembered being annoyed by the amount of cheerful ignorance that Elfo had always displayed, something that demons neither valued nor tolerated.  In the dream, that didn't matter, and Luci was pleased to find out just how easily he could get attention. The small gestures of affection as they simply existed alongside each other in this dream forest, even just the occasional mindless petting of Luci's ears, were all he could have wanted and here they were freely given.

 

It had to end sooner or later.  He knew that. No dream ever lasted forever.

 

He had flowers in his fur.  Elfo liked to pick them and idly weave them into useless decorations.  The dream had an abundance of flowers at all times, so it was like a continuous process.  This was something Luci had always given him a hard time over, in the real world. Here he let himself enjoy the fact that Elfo was murdering helpless plants in tribute to him.  There was nothing wrong in getting to feel so important, Luci reasoned as he basked in it. He rewarded the elf for such behaviour by rolling him in the grass and leaving bite marks everywhere he could reach.  Even in this made-up fleeting fiction, Luci had to admit he was still a possessive bastard and liked seeing this evidence of his ownership.

 

As they sprawled, with Luci spread out in a patch of warming sun, Elfo asked.  "Do you think it could ever be real?"

 

Luci froze.  He'd almost forgotten it wasn't.  Honestly, only the lack of Bean's presence marred this idyllic fantasy.  It was a world where he could indulge in anything he wanted, including caring about other people.  Even with that aside, it was jarring to have a dream image questioning him on the nature of reality.  "What?"

 

"It's not real, is it?" Dream Elfo asked, a bit wistfully.  "You'd never be like this for real." Luci wanted to protest this frank assessment but it was hard to.  In the waking world, he'd always pushed people away because he'd known - _thought he'd known_ \- that he didn't need them.  They'd just make him weak with their feelings and sentiment and their _mortality_.  He'd never stopped to question it, not even when it left him feeling angry and alone.

 

"It should be." Luci said, with more force behind his words than even he'd expected.  He had to pause, feeling the pang in him that had almost finally gone away in this near-perfect fantasy.  "It should have been..." He corrected himself, finally. No future. There was only the past and what he might have had.  All gone. "I wanted..." but he couldn't finish it.

 

There was something else weird.  Something nagging at him even beyond the painful reminder that this was all just an illusion of happiness... no... a delusion, to think happiness was a thing a creature from hell could even have.  Happiness. Friends. More... Luci couldn't put his finger on what was wrong though.

 

"It's just a dream," Elfo was saying and he sounded almost as miserable as Luci felt.  "It's always just a dream."

 

_Odd.  So wrong, somehow._

 

"How do you know you're a dream?" Luci asked.  It was the sharp edge of a million other questions that were refusing to form, and it somehow hit on just what was bothering him.  Dreams weren't usually self-aware and Luci was wondering if he'd somehow done something weird, some magical demon thing he hadn't even known was possible.  A sentient nightmare? Could that even be a thing? He'd indulged in this dream longer than at any point in the past.

 

"Wait?" Elfo's voice rose, becoming a high whine of distress.  "I'm the dream?" He looked stricken, like his whole reality had fallen away around him.  Luci'd never felt bad at the inevitable banishment of a dream before.

 

He kept his voice soft, almost cajoling, something he wished now that he'd done with the actual Elfo at some point.  It might have been different then. Between them. It still might have been fucking sad there, at the end, but at least.. at least...  "I miss you."

 

"But I'm here?"

 

Luci waved a dismissive hand, only able to look at Elfo from the corner of his eye, not able to directly meet that frank, pleading gaze he knew was there.  "You're not. I just made you up. I just-" He let out his breath in a wheeze. "I just... _needed_ you. This was the only place I could have you." He laughed, a small bitter sound.  "In my dreams, right? That's fitting."

 

His self-deprecating comment was met with silence and he let his gaze flick back to Elfo's face.  The elf was staring at him, small and lost. His voice came out in a confused breath. "Demons don't dream though."

 

"What?" It wasn't exactly the retort - or the reassurance - he'd been expecting.  Stupid mouthy elf, not even being cooperative in Luci's own self-indulgent dream. Now he was acting like some kind of expert on -

 

"That's what you told me before." The world was dark around them now, trees and branches rising up to encircle their small campsite.  Flickering firelight.

 

Somehow, bizarrely, Luci was speaking without even being in control of the words coming from his mouth.  "Dreams are for mortals and losers." As the words left him, he remembered them. "Not demons."

 

_we're cool like that._

 

That was right... but it had also been a lie of sorts. It wasn't just that they didn't dream.  They couldn't. The dark force that had created them hadn't even put that possibility into them.  It was useless and distracting... for mortals only. Sure, they could manipulate dreams, much as they manipulated mortals in the waking world, but it wasn't something they could create themselves out of thin air.

 

Had his mortals really gotten under his skin that much? Was he somehow _different_ now?  Was that even possible?  The thought was disturbing and terrifying.  The idea that his own nature might be somehow malleable... he could barely fathom it.  He wasn't sure he wanted to.

 

But if that wasn't the case, what alternatives did that even leave?  Bean was the only other person whose dreams he'd touched with any frequency and she wasn't here.  And besides, she wouldn't dream about Elfo being with him, especially while being there herself...  or if she did dream about them, it'd probably have been way more raunchy and less saccharine, knowing Bean.

 

There was no one else, no one it could have been.  Except...

 

As he turned to dream Elfo, ready to refute his very existence, the words died on his tongue.

 

There _was_ another possibility.  One that Luci hadn't even remotely considered -

 

_Because goddamn it, it was too much... too much to hope for_

 

-and he stared at the waiting elf, eyes going wide and his tongue feeling oddly too-big in his mouth.  "Elfo?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

" **_Elfo_ **!" Somehow the look of stupid surprise on the elf's face was enough to make him consider this crazy possibility.  It seemed too ridiculous to be part of any dream Luci's mind could have come up with.

 

"Yeah?" Elfo said again, even more lost than before.  He didn't have time to say more because he was tackled to the ground without preamble.  Luci wasn't even sure if he wanted to hit Elfo or kiss him. He settled for both.

 

Real.  He told himself.  This is real.

 

It was also a dream, but he could overlook that small detail.  If it was a dream then it wasn't _his_ dream and that meant...

 

"You're alive?"

 

Elfo's eyes were big.  "I am?" And there was a flash of realization in his eyes, of something like panic as the small green elf looked down at himself.  He was staring at his own body as though he expected to see an arrow protruding from his chest. "I died." It wasn't a question but Luci nodded anyway.  "But I'm here..." He looked at Luci again, helpless and the whole world lurched around them. It was a familiar sensation and Luci could feel a surge of panic that wasn't his own, it vibrated all around him.  "Luci?"

 

"Shit." Luci hissed.  It was the whole cardinal rule of dream invasion... there was only so far you could push reality into a dream before it came apart.  "Elfo. Don't freak out! Calm down. You're gonna-"

 

-

 

He jolted back to himself, back in his cramped bottle.  He was shaking as much as he could given the small space he was in.  He wasn't sure which emotion he was feeling, or whether it was some mix.  It was too much to process. The dream world had been compelling... realer than real.  He missed it already. He could have spent a mortal lifetime there. He might even have been - dare he think it - happy.  But it wasn't real.

 

This place.  The bottle, the ship.  These were real.

 

And Elfo.  Goddamn him, how had he missed it.  If it was true and his rude awakening seemed to point to that fact, then it meant that one crappy thing about his current reality was wrong.  Elfo was alive. He was out there.

 

So was Bean... and she didn't even know what he knew, not about Elfo or about her mother.  He could feel the prickle of her presence across their bond and he realized he'd been doing his best to cut himself off from her too.  Because mortals. And feelings.

 

Holy hell, they were all a fucking mess, weren't they?  He'd been trying to hard to wrap himself in his own misery that he'd almost managed to forget that his mortals made him...

 

_happy._

 

What a thing for a demon to feel.

 

He shifted in his bottle, wiggling experimentally.  Big Jo hadn't bothered to try very hard at keeping him contained this time.  Why would he? Luci hadn't really had anywhere he wanted to go. With Bean missing and Elfo dead, what use was he?  It was strange to him now how little he'd cared about his capture with the absence of his companions.

 

Useless.  They were hopeless without him, this just proved it.  There was still nowhere to go on the ship, not even if he escaped.  And in the recesses of his mind, where his link with Bean was, he could feel her presence, even from here.  They were getting closer to her.

 

New plan.   Luci reasoned it out, not letting himself think too hard about the challenges of it.  There were a lot of potential holes. He'd fix them as they came up.

 

Find Bean.  Get her away from Dagmar.  Then find Elfo, wherever in the world he might be now.

 

Luci had to trust that he was alive and would remain so.  If being murdered hadn't killed him, what would? Of the two, Bean was in more danger and besides, it looked like Jo was taking him right to her.

 

Luci settled in to wait, no longer idle now, but with a purpose.

 

 _Just hold on_ , he thought, hoping that his bonds with his mortals would somehow be enough to telegraph his intent.  His attempts to reach out to them in dreams were going nowhere, but he had to hope it was just because they were active out there somewhere, maybe even in the process of finding their own way back to him.

 

He wasn't one for useless hope.  Not really. Nor was he someone who went for the idea of dreams in the wishful sense.  That was still such a very mortal kind of sentiment. All the same, he closed his eyes and thought about warm hands in his fur and tipsy laughter and faint sweet scent of candy.  

 

And he waited, and wanted.  And hoped.

 

-

 

_Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you_

_Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you_

_But in your dreams whatever they be_

_Dream a little dream of me_

 

-

 

-End-

 


End file.
